


Barrel

by TheArchaeologist



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Animal Death, Character Death, Dark, Depression, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Discussions of Suicide and Why People Do it, Drama, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guns, Heavy - Freeform, Hurt No Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, why am i like this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 13:29:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16265192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArchaeologist/pseuds/TheArchaeologist
Summary: Connor never understood Hank’s fascination with the gun.(Heed the warnings.)





	Barrel

Connor never understood Hank’s fascination with the gun.

On a practical, factual level, he knew what it was for. He understood that Hank had suicidal tendencies, and that he wished to be with his child again. Connor wasn’t a supercomputer prototype for nothing.

But there were times when Hank would sit at the table, whiskey in one hand, and just stare. If it wasn’t for the breathing, and the occasional swig from the bottle, Connor could almost see Hank passing off as an android, albeit an android in an odd seated position.

It was the way Hank studied his weapon that Connor never understood, as if it would give him all the answers of the universe, or whisper secrets of the galaxies into his ear. There was an unsaid longing there, sometimes heavy in his gaze and sometimes light, that Connor could never, truly, put his proverbial finger on.

That was the thing that used to worry him.

When he was created, he was designed to understand the logical. In basic theory, he knew why people would jump from buildings, or bridges, or in front of trains. On paper he could describe every symptom of depression, anxiety, disorders, mental health conditions, anything that might trigger a person to do a certain act, down to the very last letter.

In reality, it was all rather different. People had multiple things at once, and one symptom could be an indicator of all manner of things. Reasoning being a particular act may not be as straight forward as ‘the victim was high’, or ‘they had no work’, or ‘they believed they heard people talking to them’. Since joining the DPD properly, Connor had met those who had stabbed their lovers because they had argued once, people who had allowed simple tiffs to grow into wars, people who stole cars just because they could or were in the mood.

And those were the days that had scared Connor. Walking in from a particular job, or shift, or outing to the shops, and finding Hank sat in the dark kitchen, a photo frame in front of him and his _gun_.

Once, and only once, Hank had tried to explain it to him.

He really _had_ tried.

But being brave enough to play a game of Russian Roulette but scared enough to never completely commit himself to pulling the trigger with a fully loaded gun wasn’t logical, and the conversation had dissolved into something more hostile.

Hank had shouted that emotions were illogical, and were allowed to not make sense.

Connor had retaliated that humans not making sense of emotions after thousands of years of evolution didn’t make sense, and how it was unfair that they could not understand what they were feeling, but with androids they were expected to _know_ otherwise they would be passed on as just machines and put to work in factories.

It wasn’t long before the confrontation had turned into a fierce debate on Connor’s own emotional state and wellbeing.  


At the very least Connor could always say that Hank had been excellent at turning the topic on its head and directing it back at you. Though, at that particular moment, he could have done without it.

They didn’t talk about the argument afterwards. 

Any pamphlets that Connor left around ended up in the recycling bin. Every single one.

_Swirl, click._

Sumo was Connor’s first experience of death. The dog had been aging when Connor arrived into his life, so it was only a matter of time before his health began to deteriorate, until his legs turned shaky and his vet looked at them with sad, understanding eyes.

They buried him at the end of the garden.

While Hank hadn’t cried in the same sobbing manner that Connor saw sometimes on the TV, his gaze was still wet and watery, and he took deep breathes throughout the entire thing. At the end of the burial, he had wrapped an arm around Connor, and held them together, side by side.

Connor hadn’t cried, but he had frowned. He had fisted his hands. He had grit his teeth hard enough to warrant a harsh red warning in the corner of his vision.

Death was natural. All organic things die, and all inorganic die a while after. Death was logical. All things had to die, in order for new to live.

That was the part he knew, he understood. That was the part that didn’t keep him up at night. That was the part that he could explain easily, as if discussing the weather.

He ignored the part he didn’t, that he couldn’t, the part that caused headaches to a being of plastic and wires.

_Swirl, click._

His second experience was a detective’s funeral, and it was, strangely, Gavin Reed’s. 

Connor had been on call when the report came in of a shooting in a shop, a robbery gone wrong leading to wounded. He had been the first on scene, forcing him into an unexpected hostage situation with a young woman being held at gunpoint. He had saved her, and the shooter was arrested, but when he fully stepped into the building he found Reed slumped behind a display case, a single bullet in his head.

Unlike at Sumo’s, Hank didn’t cry at this funeral, though many others did. Instead, he had been silent, eyes unseeing as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Connor had been one of the last to leave the cemetery.

_Swirl, click._

The latest funeral had been different.

While Connor’s database was large and impressive, that didn’t mean he had access to all the information at once. He had to do an internal search to find answers, his own strange way of ‘thinking’ about something before answering.

So while he knew that coffins could come in different types of wood, with different types of handles, and different types of lining, he had never actually _known_. He had never actually had to sit down and ponder it. They had hardly brought one for Sumo, and Reed’s was done by his family. 

He could still remember staring at the brochure, numb and confused as to why _he_ had to decide this. 

But Hank didn’t have any other next of kin, so it was down to him to sort it.

The funeral had been a mixture of their joint friends and those who just wanted to support Connor. Unfortunately, it didn’t rain.

He made it his personal homework to research the proper protocol for funerals and wakes, making sure to talk with every guest, to play music Hank liked (despite some protesting), to see them all out and to tip the waiting staff. He had elected out of a lift back, walking instead through the streets of Detroit. The car had been in Hank’s name.

_Swirl, click._

Deviancy was an oddity in Connor’s life.

It had been the moment he woke up and continued to be with each passing morning.

Apparently it was normal to clear through a deceased person’s belongings within a few months of their passing, or ‘when the pain had died a bit’. Connor walked into Hank’s room two months after, and carefully went around the space, going from dresser, to wardrobe, to bookcase. What was to stay went into boxes, what was to go went into bags that were taken to the local homeless shelters, or charity shops, or anywhere else where they may be wanted.

Hank had never cleared Cole’s room. Connor did it for him now.

_Swirl, click._

Slowly, the concerned and sympathetic phone calls stopped coming. Connor went back to work, and gained a new partner. They were nice, but their relationship was nothing more than professional politeness. Markus moved from Detroit. Fowler retired, as did Ben. Miller was injured on duty and forced out of policing. From his mild curiosity, Connor had discovered Miller started volunteering at the city library instead, and did the children’s reading time.

_Swirl, click._

His day went like this:

8:30 – Wake from stasis.

9:00 – Start work.

5:30 – Leave work.

6:00 – Drink Thirium.

6:10 – Clean house.

6:30 – Go into stasis.

On his days off, Connor would sit on the couch and stare at nothing until it was time to drink his Thirium.

_Swirl, click._

Hank had once called Connor shy.

Connor had disagreed, and easily named off hundreds of instances where he was anything but shy.

Hank had corrected him, explaining that in those situations, he had been in his element. Policing, interrogating, questioning. It was part of the job. Or, at the very least, he had Hank there, hovering behind him, watching the situation.

No, what Hank was talking about was when Connor was left alone in a group, usually androids. Like the New Jericho’s New Year’s Eve party, where Connor had stood at the edge of a collection of acquaintances, hours going by between people turning to talk to him, and vice versa. 

Connor tried to argue that still didn’t make him _shy_ , just…Cautious. Weary. Careful.

Hank had rolled his eyes.

_Swirl, click._

Connor didn’t go to parties at New Jericho anymore. There was little point, he didn’t know anyone there, and those he did were very quick to make their excuses and leave him standing alone.

Hank had always pushed him into going, but he wasn’t here to do that anymore. So he didn’t.

_Swirl, click._

When Connor sat at the kitchen table, he didn’t have a picture propped up in front of him. Unlike Hank, he didn’t need one. He could physically relay every saved memory in his processor, pulling up each individual file and playing them over and over and _over-_

_Swirl, click._

Officer Chen thought he should get a pet. Connor reminded her that he had the ability to live for over a hundred years, and that the lifespan of an animal was on average around ten, depending on the species, breed, and environment. He did not want a pet.

_Swirl, click._

In all the advancements in society in the last thirty years, creating an alcohol for androids was the cruellest.

_Swirl, click._

After a while, Connor begins to understand why Hank did this with the lights low. It’s more comforting, to not have to stare at the bleakness of the kitchen, devoid of food and purpose since the only human occupant fell to the floor, clutching his chest.

_Swirl, click._

Connor hadn’t buried Hank with his gun. Fowler had thought it destroyed.

_Swirl, click._

The time when Hank tried to bake Connor a birthday cake plays within his mind, the Connor of the past coming out of stasis to find frosting all over the place, and Sumo with his head in the bowl.

_Swirl, click._

He still wonders if there was a heaven for androids, or if he would get to be with Hank and Cole, wherever they were.

Then again, maybe there was nothing.

_Swirl, click._

He woke up on the floor more often than not now, but he was never late for work.

_Swirl click._

Occasionally, he skipped the Thirium for the night and went straight for the alcohol instead. But they really could do with some new flavours; the current ones were so artificial it almost hurt to swallow.

_Swirl, click._

He didn’t bother cleaning the house now. Connor didn’t make dust, or use the toilet, or the beds, or the kitchen.

_Swirl, click._

Almost a year and a half after Hank’s death, Connor bitterly thinks to himself that maybe he now understands the fascination with the gun. After all it does make a particularly pleasing sound.

_Swirl, click._

_Swirl, click._

Connor is just as unlucky at winning as Hank, though.

_Swirl, click._

_Swirl, click._

_Swirl-_

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, this was cheerful...


End file.
